Trust me.
Those two words are usually the lead-in to a cynical gag. Yet it's what Web sites are asking you to do so the government won't put them on a regulatory leash.
With 84 percent of surfers in a recent poll saying it would take something like a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval to get them to shop online, and with the U.S. Federal Trade Commission close to scuttling the concept of letting Web sites police themselves, Web marketers are slinging "seals of approval" your way. Such services as theBETTER BUSINESS BUREAU ONLINE,PUBLIC EYE,TRUSTe, and theAMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CERTIFIED PUBLIC ACCOUNTANTS aim to make you believe that online shopping is as safe as swimming with water wings.
Search BBBOnline for computers in Wisconsin, for example, and you'll get a report on a member called Small Business Computer Services. The report provides a street address, phone and fax numbers, e-mail address, owner's name, and customer-service contacts, as well as information about when the business started and when the BBB opened a file on it.
In most cases, a business listed with BBBOnline must, among other requirements, have been in operation for at least a year, have a satisfactory complaint-handling record, and agree to binding arbitration for settling disputes. Businesses may then post a BBB graphic on their site, indicating membership.
So far, so good. The identifying information and the BBB's formalized grievance procedures make shopping with Merchant X online much like shopping with Merchant Z off-line.
"The BBBOnline and other programs like it are encouraging as one more way to protect consumers," says David Medine, the FTC's associate director for credit practices. "They help augment what our standing laws against deception and fraud already cover. That's why they work: They're an added layer of protection, not the only layer."
Of course, the laws to which Medine refers haven't stopped some merchants on the Web from counterfeiting the BBB graphic--and suckering surfers who don't realize that a legitimate logo, according to the BBB, takes you to BBBOnline and gives you a "participation confirmed" message if you click it.
Nor do the current legal protections address the corollary issue of what can happen to the personal information a consumer provides to an online merchant. "It's an open question with privacy," Medine explains, "if these programs will succeed in the absence of laws."
The privacy problem is what TRUSTe is trying to tackle. After auditing a business's privacy standards--and raising them to a level where data-gathering practices are disclosed and surfers are offered a chance to choose how their personal data will be used--TRUSTe will award the site a "trustmark," similar to the BBBOnline seal. TRUSTe's members also must follow a set process for resolving complaints.
Click on the trustmark atCYBERGOLD, and you're zapped back to TRUSTe's site, where you'll find a privacy statement that spells out what CyberGold can do with your Social Security number, credit card info, and so forth. You're also given contact information you can use to stop CyberGold from keeping your data on file or sharing it with third parties.
"These seals," says TRUSTe's executive director, Susan Scott, "hold online businesses to a much higher standard of privacy protection than those off-line."
Still, questions remain: How many people will bother clicking on a trustmark and reading the background information? How many will take the time to write, e-mail, or phone in a request to alter the way their data is used? If a third party does purchase your profile, how will you know? And if you want to take action, how much time, money, and energy will it require?
In the absence of real penalties, the burden's on you to look for sites that ostensibly let you decide what happens to those personal details you think you own--your name, phone number, e-mail address, Social Security number, etc. "Ostensibly" because these sites seem to feel that telling you what they'll do with your information is an adequate substitute for not taking it in the first place. At the extreme, this is like a pickpocket describing what he'll do with your wallet, then giving you the phone number of the local constabulary.
When it comes to privacy, these seals of approval may be prone to leaks.
